James Marusek

Loss of hunger. I found that to be the case too. It wasn't hard to lose weight when the beast called hunger was not constantly knocking on your door. During the first few months after surgery, most foods loss their taste. But then your taste buds change.

There are 210 calories and 25 grams of Protein.

I live 2 hours from the hospital in which I had the surgery. I left the hospital and returned home 2 days after surgery. I don't remember the ride home being a problem. So I do not think a 3 hour trip 17 days post-op should be too big a problem at least as far as the traveling is concerned. If you are worried about the pain, then make sure you do the walking exercise each day prior to surgery. It will help with the pain and recovery. When I went in for the operation, I refused any pain medicine after I left the recovery room. This operation was done laparoscopically and as a result there was significantly less pain. I underwent a hernia operation a couple decades ago before laparoscopic surgery and that was painful, but this Laparoscopic Roux-En-Y Gastric Bypass was not (at least not for me). Although you are focused on food in your question, at this early stage after surgery, you food intake is minimal. You could probably meet your food requirement by taking a few small jars of baby food. The real problem areas you may encounter on your trip will be taking your Protein supplement, Vitamins, liquids and medication. The Protein shakes are powders designed to be mixed with liquids (water or milk). I tried mixing these with a shaking cup in the beginning, but this method left something to be desired. So I quickly transitioned to making them with a blender. But when you are traveling, its a little hard to carry around a blender with you. Now when I am up and about, I take along a Protein Bar. But at 17 days post op, I don't think you can eat a protein bar. So for your trip, I would recommend you stop by your local GNC and purchase several bottles of Protein Ice. This is a super concentrated form of a Protein Drink. Each bottle contains 42 grams of protein. From my perspective, it taste terrible but I let my wife taste it and she thought it was O.K. One of the things that happens after surgery is that you will not be able to swallow large pills, even medium size pills for awhile. So I would recommend getting a pill splitter and a pill crusher prior to surgery. There is a lot of medicine and vitamins after the operation. Generally in order to prevent blood clots, you might be prescribed Lovenox (Enoxaparin). I my case I had to give myself a shot of Lovenox once per day for the first week after I left the hospital. The length of time these must be taken vary from one individual to another. I didn't like giving myself these shots and I bruised easily as a result of this medication. So I think 17 days post-op, you should be over with this. As to your question about Gerd/Barrett's Esophagus, perhaps someone else can address this better. I had a few periods of severe acid reflux prior to surgery. I haven't had any episodes in the 11 months since the operation. But then again my surgeon has prescribed Omephazole for the first year following surgery. This is the same thing as Prilosec which is what I would normally use for acid reflux.

I had diabetes and was on 2 types of diabetes medicine prior to surgery. During the 6 month medically monitored weight loss program mandated by my insurance company, I lost 20 pounds. As a result I was able to cut my diabetes medicine by a third prior to surgery. The one change that I made prior to surgery was to cut out my diet cokes and that resulted in the weight loss. I use to have a 6 cokes per day habit. The day I left the hospital 2 days after surgery, I was off all my diabetes medicine and have not used any since. I periodically check my blood sugars during the past 11 months and the numbers look good.

My wife has used it for several years now due to natural wrinkling. She never had surgery. I think it is one of her natural beauty secrets.

Hi Faye One thing I noticed after my surgery was that I was no longer hungry. I found it was not hard to lose weight when you are not hungry. There was a lot of complexity following surgery and it took me 6 months to get to my happy state. The meal plan, the Vitamin regiment, the Protein supplements, the time spacing between these regiments - all made this process overly complex. I put down my experience in an article "How I Survived Bariatric Surgery". It is posted on the internet at http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery.pdf

I am 65 years old. After gastric bypass surgery, my skin became extremely wrinkled, like paper crinkles. Overnight, I began to look a hundred years old. My wife suggested I use Bio-Oil available at CVS. I apply it once each morning and that takes care of the problem.

The brand I used for Protein shakes was called Muscle Milk Light (vanilla Creme). I would mix it with Water and add half a banana and then blend it. I hate protein shakes but this was the best of the worst. After I reached my bottom weight, I felt I could be a little more creative, so at 7 months I transitioned off the protein shakes onto other forms of protein supplements.

It does get better. But it took me 6 months to get to my happy state.

I use Citracal. These are large (horse) pills. Had to crush them and they tasted terrible. About month 3, my nutritionist recommended that I try to swallow one. I did and it worked and ever since this has not been a problem.

I am not sure I can help but I did have gout like symptoms that would flare up once or twice per year. I found that if I put a plug-in heat pad on my feet for an hour or so, that helped to ease the pain and the symptoms would go away in a day or two. I am not sure that cutting back on your Protein supplements is a good thing. If you eat too much meat and fish that are high in chemicals called purines they can increase your chances of getting gout. Most Protein shakes are based on whey powders (the liquid material created as a by-product of cheese production). Taking Ibuprofen or other anti-inflammatory medicine can also help you feel better. Do not take aspirin or products that contain aspirin. Drink plenty of Water. Here is an interesting link that addresses this question (Do protein shakes increase the risk of gout?). http://www.ask.com/explore/protein-shakes-increase-risk-gout-5667

You can drink Water or other liquids after the Protein shake. The time spacing rule applies to your meals.

Protein shakes count as liquids in meeting your daily liquid requirements. So do broths, milk, Water, tea, and coffee. Also I don't think the fact that it took you 2 hours to drink one Protein shake will have an adverse affect on your stomach. After surgery, I was lactose intolerant. Some protein shakes had lactose and sometimes one mixes the protein shake powder with milk. This could have an effect on your stomach and cause you diarrhea. My protein shake was lactose free and I mixed it with water. A few months after surgery, the lactose intolerant condition went away. Generally I mixed the Protein Powder with a half a banana and added water and blended it in a blender. In general, the protein shakes taste terrible, but this method helped to make it drinkable.

Good luck on your surgery. I will keep you in my prayers.

O.K. It sounds like your Protein and Water are good. I also had a problem with solid foods but not as extreme as you. I found that I could tolerate high protein chili and Soups. I am 11 months post-op from gastric bypass - RNY. I reached my bottom weight at 7 months. So you might see if you can tolerate these. I put together a short article "How I survive bariatric surgery". In the article I also included some recipes. Here is a link. http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Surgery.pdf So I would say, give it a try. Do the chili. One half cup per meal, three times per day. Now for the other part. I would say 70 grams per day of protein is probably good. Your total protein is the combination of what comes in the meals plus your protein supplements. Now flip over to the other side of the equation and add up your total calories per day. I came to a plateau during my weight loss. At the time, my meal volume was so small, that there just wasn't very many calories on the meal side. But there was calories on the protein supplement side. In my case I cut down from 3 Protein shakes a day down to two and I started to lose weight again. I was using Muscle Milk Light for my protein shakes which is a concentrated form of protein. But there are even more concentrated forms of protein out there. Muscle Milk Light mixed with water 210 calories 25 grams protein Protein Ice 170 calories 42 grams protein So this is a way to reduce your caloric intake. But for me, protein ice tasted really, really bad. But my wife liked it. Another question is "Are you taking the prescribed Vitamins?". Because of the surgery, your body is no longer synthesizing some of these. Since you are taking pain medicine, I think I have read in other posts that pain medicine can interfere with weight loss. The other possibility, is there is something wrong medically, either with the surgery or your body.

You're right this does not sound typical. You indicated that "your hair is falling out" and "I can't eat some days". Hair falling out could be due to a lack of nutrition or Vitamins. Are you drinking your Protein shakes? How much protein are you consuming each day? Do you have a problem drinking the required quantity of Water each day? Are you deviating from the Vitamin regiment? Do you experience diarrhea or constipation? At 4 months, you should be consuming a half a cup of food per meal. Is it hard for you to eat solid foods? I know I am asking a lot of questions but I just want to help.

This was the process that I went through. 1. Discussed my desire for weight loss surgery with my family doctor. He concurred. 2. Looked at my plan to ensure bariatric surgery was covered and identified a bariatric center in my state which was within network. 3. Attended a seminar that discussed the types of surgery available, pros and cons for each type and at the end met with the surgeon and down-selected the type of surgery. 4. Went through a psychiatric evaluation. 5. Attended a 6 month medically monitored exercise and weight reduction program. (Mandated by my insurance company.) 6. Obtained approval for the surgery. 7. Underwent extensive pre-op testing. 8. Problems uncovered during pre-op testing resulted in another round of testing with specialist. 9. The surgery date was set. 10. Attended a day of classes on surgery and post surgery. This gave great detail on meal plans, Protein requirements, Vitamin requirements and other post surgery details. 11. Had surgery and left the hospital 2 days later and returned home.

I eat out when I am up and about. But I am more selective about what I eat and in portion size. I eat out at both dining and fast food restaurants. Before surgery, I would eat 5 crunchy tacos at taco bell. After, it would be one taco. Any more and I could feel a dumping episode in the making. I found a bowl of chili at Wendy's was good. I still eat at Olive Garden. They have a $4 small plate menu, that is just about the right volume. No salad, no breadsticks, just a glass of Water and one item from the small plate menu. At a Chinese Restaurant, a bowl of seafood Soup, is nice. Most times when I go to a dining restaurant and order a full meal. I eat a quarter of the meal and take the rest home. It becomes my lunch for the next 2 or 3 days.

I would put the psych evaluation in the same category as the pre-op testing. If they uncover anything that causes them some concern, they will require additional testing by specialist. It was over a year ago when I went through the psych eval. It seemed like the questions were overly personal. But I had no problem with it. There was one person in my support group who had problems with the evaluation and as a result she had to meet with a separate psychologist and they had to sign off on her before she could become eligible for the surgery. In my case they asked me why I wanted the surgery? I told them I had diabetes and high blood pressure. I saw how diabetes was affecting my mother and I did not want to go down that road. They asked me when I was young was I overweight? No, I was actually skinny. They asked me why I was overweight? I have spent my whole life working behind a desk. It's a very sedentary lifestyle and I have a sweet tooth. Anyways, you get the flavor!

Wallflower7522 I also had problems with constipation after the surgery. It was driving me nuts. I finally stumbled onto a cure that works for me. It was apples. But you have to eat the peels. Now I eat one or two apples just before I go to bed each night, and the problem is no longer a problem.

Markricks I am 11 months post-op on gastric bypass RNY. Although I have not been tested for sleep apnea, I was snoring so loud that it kept my wife awake. This condition went on for over 4 years before surgery. The specialist that examined me thought I had sleep apnea. After surgery this condition has gone into remission around 2 weeks after the operation. I sleep so quiet now that my wife wakes up in the middle of the night and snuggles up to me to see if I am still breathing. I sleep so quietly she thinks I am dead. I also was bothered by acid reflux for around a year before the surgery. This problem went away also. But I don't know if this is a fair tests. To protect my stomach and help in the healing process, I have been routinely prescribed by my surgeon with Omeprazole for the first year after surgery, which is the same thing as Prilosec. Since Prilosec treats heartburn and reflux, I would say it is too soon to tell long term. I should be off the Omeprazole in about a month, then I will know for sure.

Sweets were one of my weaknesses before surgery. I am 11 months post-op and experienced only one episode of dumping. It was because I ate too much. I do my best to stay away from sugar. In general, sugar substitutes seem to satisfy my sweetness cravings. I maximize experimentation. I have noticed that when I ate several homemade Christmas Cookies and candy this year, I saw a weight gain. So off the cookies and the weight fell back in line.

I had a Gastric Bypass, RNY, 11 months ago. I experienced diarrhea early on. It was due to the fact that all of a sudden I was Lactose Intolerant. I went off all milk products. That posed a problem with the Protein supplements. Fortunately Muscle Milk Light was lactose free. About 2 months after surgery, I discovered I was no longer lactose intolerant anymore and I began using milk. Haven't had a problem since. I do my best to stay away from processed sugars. I find that sugar substitutes work for me. My great weakness before surgery was sugar. Now I can thrive using alternate sweeteners. One of the individuals in our support group suffered from erosion caused by his lap band. He had it removed and had a revision to a gastric bypass. He had the revision done over a year ago and seems to be thriving pretty well. He had some problems early on because the lap band had damaged so much of his stomach that when they created the pouch it was very small compared to most and this gave him some initial problems.

I noticed after the surgery, my face began to wrinkle very badly. It looked like paper thin crinkles. I am 65 years old and overnight I began to look like I was a hundred. My wife suggested I use Bio-Oil available at CVS. I apply a thin coat of this on my face each morning and the problem went away. It may not take care of the drooping skin but it seems to handle the wrinkles O.K.

I never had a lap band. But I did have acid reflux quite often before surgery. I had high blood pressure and diabetes for several years before surgery along with several other problems. I had bariatric surgery (Roux-En-Y) 11 months ago. I was completely off my blood sugar medicine when I left the hospital two days after surgery. I was completely off my blood pressure medicine three weeks after surgery. I lost 20 pounds pre-op and 80 pounds post-op and now weigh 160 pounds.